Tactics - Cornering

The next bit on the four part series is cornering. The Rent is a great race for new racers because there are corners enough to challenge you but not getting into the "dangerous" range of corners. Yes, there have been crashes in corners, but generally speaking the corners at the Rent are manageable with the 40-60 rider field sizes we see on a Tuesday. It helps that the race gets strung out pretty regularly so the field is only a few riders wide at speed.

Cornering Can Be Scary

I think the scariest part of mass start racing was the cornering in the field. In fact even now, when I get to a race and I see a pack of racers diving into a turn, I wonder how they all make it without crashing. Of course once I'm whatever race I'm doing then it's okay, but watching it from the outside is still intimidating for me, 30-odd years after I started racing.

I addressed some cornering thoughts in previous posts on the blog. One highlight:
Late Apex and Looking Where You're Going

The big takeaway from that post is that you should strive to look where you're going. I've read (but not confirmed) that people tend to go where they look. For me that holds true so I try to look forward through turns. I do look around the front of my bike also, just to be safe, but generally I'm looking forward.

How Do You Corner In A Field?

The most important thing when cornering in a field is to follow the other racers. It sounds basic but you'd be surprised at how many racers try to follow some imaginary "optimal line" and end up going across other riders' paths.

Optimal cornering lines only exist if you're riding alone or, in rare cases, if you're leading out a very strung out field. For example, in this leadout, I knew that the field was waiting for me so I could choose any line I wanted, and I chose an early line. The pertinent part starts at about 7:45 or so, when I'm in the lead.


If you're not on your own or leading out the field then you need to adapt your line to those around you.

Recently I've been thinking about how I corner in a group, to try to explain it to others. I found that I basically do the following:

1. If on the inside I follow the rider in front of me.
2. If in the middle I follow a path parallel to the rider to the OUTSIDE of me.
3. If on the outside I follow the rider in front of me or do a parallel line to the rider to my inside.

By focusing on the riders around me I avoid looking at the curb and therefore cutting in too early or too much. This is a common error with new racers, where they turn in too much, then they correct and swerve out. By following the rider in front you avoid creating new lines and you keep the field in harmony.

Obviously I'm keeping an eye out on curbs and such - if following one of my basic rules above puts me into the curb then that's no good. A few times this year I've found myself skittering on the edge of control as the field collectively went really wide, putting most of the riders on the outside into the curb. The trust that the racers had in each other meant that many of the racers, including the really experienced ones, ended up following riders on lines that were just a few inches too wide.

Where Should I Hold The Bars?

For me this is a huge peeve. All too often I see riders diving into pretty dicey corners on the hoods. For example, in 2010, at the New London Crit, I was vying for position going into the last turn. The course was really interesting, it had a one lane (with curbs) downhill going into a super sharp corner (well it was way more than 90 degrees) into an uphill finish.

The guy in front of me went into the turn on his hoods. His front wheel washed out and he crashed. I was on the drops, I could avoid him, and although I had to brake really hard and shift down a couple gears, I got going again and ended up placing in the race.

The answer, assuming your bike fits properly, is that you should be on the drops. The drops give you the best braking, best steering, and best overall control of the bike. It usually gives you more power and speed but that's for a different post. Right now I'm concerned with finishing the race, and since the corners are the diciest place in a race, you need to stack the odds in your favor that you'll finish the race. If you stay upright then that's good, and being on the drops increases those odds.

A few years ago at the Rent a guy rolled his tire going into Turn One. A very, very, very good racer was next to me, on that rolled tire guy's wheel. He happened to be on the hoods. He ended up crashing and breaking his collarbone. I don't know if he'd have been able to save it if he'd been on the drops but from my video it's apparent that the racer had to give up trying to stay upright because he couldn't slow down nearly enough. He couldn't steer or brake enough to save himself.

I was on the drops. One of the bike's wheel hit my neck, but I was otherwise fine. I fixated on the curb and fortunately managed to avert my eyes (and my path) and didn't it that curb, but I never felt like I was out of control.

You should get into the habit of using the drops when you're in flatter terrain or on downhills. It's a great default position with virtually no drawbacks (on a properly fit bike). You should be able to turn, brake, and shift 100%, and if that's the case then there's little reason to use another position.

There's no hill at the Rent but a great default position on hills is on the hoods. That's a different topic though.

Front Wheel Weight

Not your front wheel's weight! I'm talking about how much weight you have on your front wheel. If you're on the drops you put a bit more weight on the front wheel. For virtually all paved corners this is a good thing. You can almost always recover from a rear wheel skitter or hop, but if your front wheel goes sideways the chances of staying upright are a lot lower.

Therefore it's important to weight the front wheel. It's easier to do that when you're on the drops. I also slide forward on the saddle. This lets me blast into turns with a lot of confidence that the bike will go where I want it to go.

Pushing Away From The Front Wheel

When a rider gets scared in a corner they push away from the front wheel. They tend to sit back, they literally push the bars forward, and they'll even stand up out of the saddle. An additional normal reaction is to do an early apex, i.e. enter the corner early. All of these instinctive reactions make the bike handle worse in corners, making the rider even more scared. It's a bad cycle and you need to avoid falling into it.

It's not just the amateurs either. An unfortunate example of a pro rider like this is Levi Leipheimer. When he raced for Gerolsteiner he made a huge move on a stage in the Tour. He gave away minutes on the descent as he screwed up the corners, doing many of the things I list above (in particular his early apexes, sitting back on the saddle, and unweighting the saddle).

I've fallen victim to this as well, when I first descended down Palomar Mountain near San Diego. It's 35 minutes of descending for me, it's quite steep, and there are a bunch of switchbacks. Some are blind, meaning you can't see the exit point of the hairpin.

However the scariest parts are the fast sweeping turns, especially the ones with just sky beyond the guardrail. The drop offs are pretty big (being scared of heights I avoided stopping and looking down on the way up) and obviously if I made a mistake, or I had a massive mechanical, it would be bad.

Descent on the way to Palomar.

Trucks regularly pass me going about 50 to maybe 65 mph.

I typically hit about 45-50 mph on this road.

Well I found myself pushing the front wheel away from me, pushing the bars away, trying to get away from the guardrail. This unweighted the front wheel such that I had to go really slow in some of the corners and I was still drifting to the outside. I was turning in early, in spite of myself, so it was even worse. I came to a stop once on the wrong side of the road and basically had a miserable time doing the descent. I even got a crick in my neck from being so tense, and I had to actually stop to let my forearms rest because I was braking so hard.

In later years doing Palomar I could descend on the drops comfortably. I had more confidence that I wouldn't go shooting off the cliffs (even if I had a massive mechanical - I thought of how I'd slide to catch the guardrail etc), I had confidence in my cornering ability, so I could weight the front wheel like normal. This let me blast into turns quick enough that I could catch a car halfway down the mountain.

Conclusion

Essentially when you're cornering in a field you want to follow the field. Think "school of fish". Follow the other riders' line, they follow the riders in front of them, and everything works out nicely. If you try to do your own thing then it gets a bit messy.

Remember that cornering well lets you stay in the draft better and gets you going on the next stretch of road closer to a sheltering wheel. This increases the chances of you finishing the race.

(Disclaimer/note: I am putting these posts up in response to some internal requests from individual riders for advice etc. I am not singling out any particular rider or their request, and this advice works for all racers. In fact I'd claim that these pieces offer universal advice for all new mass start bike racers.)

How To - Cornering, Looking Habits (Pictures)

I often address questions about cornering, whether the rider asks me directly or someone pleas for help on the intraweb. One of the most important things in cornering is to look ahead in the turn. If you keep looking directly in front of you then you won't be able to see what's coming up. It's sort of like the first person view in a driving game - you can't look around corners. It's also the reason I prefer to view helmet cam footage versus bar cam footage. With a bar cam you can't tell what the rider is looking at, where their head is pointed.

Every ride I do from the house and every drive home in the car, I have the privilege of taking a very interesting right turn. It's an acute turn, more than 90 degrees, almost a 180. What makes it interesting is that it's apparent that the designers initially pictured it as a T intersection with a severely bent stem on the T.

However, instead of making it a real square T they widened the entry side (from my "going home" direction). This resulted in a multi-radius turn and severely encourages an early turn in. I'm guessing they made it so that any 18-wheelers would be able to clear the turn without destroying the curb or maybe they adjusted the curb after it got destroyed by the first moving truck that came into the complex.  Whatever the reason the extra room on the right side of the turn makes this a weird turn. The first part is a true 90 degree turn, but then the road immediately swerves right in a very wide radius 70 or 80 degree turn.

In the car it's pretty apparent it's quite sharp, and in fact for a while I was going really wide at the exit of the turn. I mean I live here and I try to be very aware as I drive so to screw up the turn... I wasn't happy with myself.

Approaching the right turn.

As you can see it's a pretty sharp right. The road doubles back on itself to create a 180 type turn. It's not so apparent in the picture but it's quite a steep down hill - on the bike, coasting, it's easy to hit 35 mph. In the car I have to brake to keep the speed under 35 and I typically come down the hill at about 30 mph.

Dash cam has limited sight lines.

Here you can see the problem with the dash cam's aim (and, to a certain extent, a bar cam's). Even though you're setting up for a really hard right turn you can't see it in the image.

About 45 degrees into the turn.

Mid-turn there's very little to see. The landscape just slides sideways across the screen as I turn the car hard to the right.

Turn out.

I'm about to get to a speed limit sign but you can't tell from the dash cam.

At the exit of the turn, or the "turn out" point, I'm parallel with the curb and on the right shoulder. Most residents here (there are probably 60-70 families who live down this road) end up virtually kissing the left curb before they move over to the right. It's a bit annoying to someone like me who drives the other way when I leave the house. For most people it's not a big deal but for us we live at the point where most people are just getting back to the right side of the road.

Note the green thing on the right. It's some kind of utility box.

This is after the puddle from the earlier picture.

I included the last picture to show the green utility box. It's a good point of reference.

Now let's take the same turn from the point of view of me, the rider, while noting where I'm looking, where my head is pointing. Okay, granted, my helmet cam (ContourHD 1080p) is of better quality than my dashcam (DroidX phone, 1080p, running Daily Roads), but still you'll see the differences.

Approaching the turn.

So far things look the same. It's a sharp right turn, curbed so a hard border, downhill, coasting at about 30-35 mph. My hands are on the drops, I'm slightly on the brakes, and I've shifted into an appropriate gear for rolling out of the turn.

First look right.

My head turns most of the way but my eyes are actually looking further right. I'm looking through the trees for any movement - cars typically drive 35 mph or faster and if they do I'll end up at the intersection as the same time as them. Since most drivers here drive in the center of the road it's not good for me if I meet a center-of-the-road driver at the intersection.

Look forward again.

I look forward again. I need to get my bearings down - it's not like I'm going to go through the whole turn looking ahead.

In this shot you can sort of imagine the line. Better yet let me use my incredible Photoshop skillz and draw some lines.

Solid line is the late apex.

Dash line is the early apex.

(Solid line is supposed to follow the curb but it's hard drawing those lines with a touchpad so it veers up  a bit, even though it's not supposed to do so.)

Most people tend to do the early apex. It's not just in bike racing, it's in life. Watch someone rushing to beat a light or take a turn in front of oncoming traffic. They veer to the side as if getting to the curb somehow helps gives them help going around the corner.

When people get scared or unsure they turn in early. I do, when I'm scared or unsure, because the panic instinct is very hard to overcome. The key is to not be scared of cornering, to understand cornering lines, and to apply your knowledge when you corner.

(As a side note most fast descenders are also extremely good corner-ers. They descend fast because they know how to take corners. Since both cornering and descending generally don't take fitness it would be poor strategy to ignore the benefits of proper cornering. This is where a less fit rider can make up a lot of ground. It's also where a lot of fit-but-unskilled racers lose tons of ground.)

It took me a few tries to figure this turn out. Since I live here I got to try the corner every time I drive or ride home, and after carelessly ignoring the tricky corner I finally spent a minute of energy thinking about it. It's nothing too tricky (car racers will probably be shaking their heads at me) - it requires an especially late apex with a hard turn The turn out ends up really early - at about the first tree or so, maybe the second tree.

Most people who drive here take the dashed line. It causes them to veer way to the outside, and if I'm riding from the house (i.e. towards them) they have to slam on the brakes and almost come to a stop so they can get to the proper side of the road. It makes for interesting situations when you consider that many people leaving coming out from the right will stop in the middle of the road, about where the second-last dash sits.

Using the correct line I can enter the corner at a higher speed than a "stay-on-the-right-side" early apex--er and still stay on the right side.

Going through the turn.

My bike is pointing towards about the 11 o'clock direction, not straight ahead.

At some point I'll do a clip of this but in the above shot I'm looking towards the turn out point, where the trees are to the right. My head is pointed to the speed limit sign but my eyes are looking further right. My bike is pointing to the left a bit, leaned way over, turning very hard. It's pointing to about the 11 o'clock direction, so a bit to the left of straight up.

Wide radius part of the turn.

I'm at the wide radius part of the turn. My bike is starting to get closer to the curb, I'm still looking forward at or to the right of the trees. My eyes are being pulled forward like there was a string tied to them, a string pulled by someone just disappearing from view up the road.

Now my bike is almost in line with my head.

No puddles because this cam footage is from a different day than the dash cam stuff.

I'm about to even out with the curb - I'll be next to it as the bare patch in the grass ends and the curb straightens out.

With the early apex I'm parallel to the curb before the curve ends. It's safer for me, safer for oncoming traffic. In a group ride this is excellent because I'm staying out of traffic's way. In a race it's even better -  if you have a mishap mid-turn you have a lot of space to work with, but more importantly you can really accentuate the accordion effect (if you're at the front) or save a lot of energy (if you're tailgunning at the back).

Waitaminute. You forgot one thing, you say to me. Where's that green utility box, the one that signaled the turn out point from the dash cam?

Well if you look past the speed limit sign, between it and the first tree truck, you'll see it way down the road. It's about twice the distance as to the speed limit sign.

With the helmet cam it's clear what line I took and where I was looking. With a bar cam (or a dash cam) it would be much harder. I basically take the same line in both the car and the bike. The dash cam is mounted just to the left of center in the car so it's about 3 feet further left than my helmet cam, but it's clear that the dash cam simply cannot illustrate how I took the turn.

Remember that cornering lines are habits. If you got yourself into the normal habit of turning in early you need to break that habit. You shouldn't practice cornering only on the bike. You should practice it whenever you're taking a turn with a wheeled vehicle, whether it's a car, a shopping cart, or a baby stroller. Break that early apex habit and improve your bike racing.